Betrayed by Love:The Greatest Man I Never knew
by Mrs.RhettButlerorHarryPotter
Summary: Songfic to Reba McEntire's The Greatest Man I Never Knew in Ginny's POV. HG one shot


This is based on the song, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" by Reba McEntire.

The war had ended and it was, to all of our greatest relief, in Harry's favor. Soon after the final battle he proposed to me, and I was so relieved he was alive….I said yes. Maybe in all the happiness of that moment I missed the stone in his eyes, the green lightening so that it didn't catch anyone's notice, like his darker, piercing gaze had. So if that were the case, the same thing must have happened on our wedding day, how did I miss the emptiness, or the missing desire?

Life without the threat of attack was amazing, something I had forgotten existed. Harry and I were settling into marriage quite nicely. We bought a house a few miles from the Burrow and joined the family in a big Sunday dinner every week.

As I look back I remember him lightening up, from his paranoid, depressed and too mature for his age self that he had been since the end of his fourth year, into a more relaxed, fun loving guy.

Harry had started his own business, he sold insurance. Everyone thought he would become a professional Quidditch player, or an Auror; however, he was excellent at selling insurance, but then who better to buy your insurance from then the savior of the world?

Never would I have thought then, that I would be where I am now, and the path I had taken to get here.

We had been married for about six months and Harry approached me about having children. I told him I would love to have children and the look of relief and happiness that came to his face when I said that, almost brought tears to my eyes. Of course I knew he would want kids, he had grown up with no family and he wanted to know the feeling of love a family could share.

Everyone around him had known this practically since the day we had met him, and my mother would always insist that he did have a family, us. However, I think he wanted something more secure, that his children would always be his seemed to appeal to him.

So we tried for a baby for another six months and after our one year anniversary came and there was no baby to speak of, we went to the healers.

That day will always haunt me. It had been a very cloudy day, one that promised rain. The clouds were swirling madly overhead as we walked through the glass of the abandoned store front. After waiting for about ten minutes, our Healer called us in to her office.

"I'm sorry to inform you, Mrs. Potter, but you can't have kids." The healer went on to explain why and our other options, but I didn't hear any of it. I couldn't bring myself to look at Harry so instead stayed safely with the carpet.

From that moment on my life would never be the same.

Harry kept telling me that he was fine, he was happy, and I stupidly convinced myself he was telling the truth. He decided to fund his own paper, one that would print lies. He devoted as much time as he could to the new business, as well as keep up with the insurance company. His hours grew longer, and when he did get home he was too tired to say or do much.

Then came a day I'll never forget, he came home very late, I was almost asleep after waiting for him to come home for hours.

"Harry, is that you?" I called out.

"Yes, it's me." Then there was silence.

"Well come on to bed, its late." I finally said.

"I need to talk to you." He didn't make any motion to coming to bed.

"Can't it wait until morning, Harry?" I yawned.

"No." The gruffness and determination in his voice caused me to situp.

"What is it?" He opened his mouth to speak, but then clamped it tightly and shook his head. After a minute he strode over to the bed and slid into the covers. A few minutes later he was asleep, and I was wide awake.

Life went on until one morning I woke up to an empty space beside me. Not only was it empty, but it didn't look as if anyone had slept there the night before. I rolled out of bed and walked curiously into the kitchen, where Harry was sitting at the table, having his cup of coffee.

"You didn't come to bed last night." I stated.

Without looking up from the newspaper he was reading, he said nonchalantly, "I slept in the guest room."

"Why?" I was slightly disturbed at how his voice sounded as if we had this conversation every morning.

"I came home late, didn't want to wake you." He replied.

"Well, that's sweet of you, but you don't have to do that next time." I smiled at him, but he just shrugged and continued reading the paper.

From then on, every time he came home late, which was more times than not, he slept in the guest room. Soon, almost all of his stuff was in the other room and he took up a regular residence down the hall.

We entered a dull and uneventful routine; we'd wake up in our separate rooms, walk into the kitchen, mutter a hello, fix our breakfast and he would go to work. On the days when he came home at a normal time, he sat in the living room with a scotch reading the paper, his paper. I always thought it was funny to see a man read his own paper, not that he wrote what was actually in it, but still. I knew he didn't like to be bothered so I stayed in my room to think things over about my life. That was where I came to the realization one night that Harry hadn't said "I Love you" to me since our wedding.

Then came the worst and most liberating morning of my life, the one where I was the only one in the kitchen for breakfast. He had never been this late in his routine, so I trudged up the stairs and down the hall to his room. No answer came when I knocked on the door, so I slowly opened it, hoping he wouldn't be mad that he had overslept. I walked over to the bed and gently shook him, but he wouldn't open his eyes. I called his name and poked and prodded for almost a full five minutes. Then, more urgently I began to call to him, but there was still no answer, no sign that he even was aware of my presence. That was when I realized he would never wake up again.

So here I sit, in my same old room as before, nearly a year since that morning, writing all of this down. I'm not quite sure why, but I just feel the need to put all my thoughts onto this paper, maybe then they won't be so jumbled up in my head.

Remus Lupin really got all this going the other day, when he made a remark about how sad Harry had looked even after he was freed from the World's burdens. At first I had taken offense to the statement, as I should have kept him from being that way, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew Remus was right.

Harry had always been sad, he had never known his parents, and then he had to kill a man, no matter how evil he was he still counted, somehow, as a being. He had given us, the World, a lot by committing that murder, where his greatest weapon was love. Then, his wife couldn't give him the family he had always wanted. I'm sure he felt that love had cheated him quite a bit in his life.

Therefore, I had decided that we were all responsible for his death. The Healers hadn't been able to come up with a cause, but I'm sure now that it was a broken, crushed and burned heart, oozing with loneliness that had done him in. After all, we were the ones who pleaded with him, even if we never said a word, to save our lives and become a criminal. Now, we might not think of defeating a Dark Lord full of terror as a crime, but I'm sure that's how Harry looked at it, his heart is just that big. Which is what makes his death so sad; he gave us so much and we didn't give enough back.

Sometimes, I can't help but laugh, until I think my sides are going to split or because the neighbors think I've finally gone insane. I laugh because the Savior of the Wizarding world, The-Boy-Who-lived, survived the killing curse at age one, but died of a broken heart at age twenty-eight. I'm putting this with my will, so that when I pass you can read it and know the story of Harry Potter. I'm sure some of you with laugh right along with me at the situation, and some will cry, like I did as well, and some will just morn the loss of a fallen friend again. Some history books will put the story of Harry Potter as true as they know, up until our wedding, but then they will come up with mysterious theories of the cause of his death. Others, who will publish their books after this is released to the public, will have the more tragic and accurate tale, of a conflicted boy turned Savior, who was betrayed by his own weapon, Love.

_The greatest man I never knew_

_Lived just down the hall_

_And everyday we said hello_

_But never touched at all_

_He was in his paper_

_I was in my room_

_How was I to know he thought I hung the moon?_

_The greatest man I never knew_

_Came home late every night_

_He never had too much to say_

_Too much was on his mind_

_I never really knew _

_Oh and know it seems so sad_

_Everything he gave to us took all he had_

_And the days turned into years_

_and the memories to black and white_

_He grew cold like an old winter wind_

_Blowing across my life_

_The greatest words I never heard_

_I guess I'll never hear_

_The man I thought could never die_

_S'been dead almost a year_

_Oh and he was good at business_

_But there was business left to do_

_He never said he loved me_

_Guess he thought I knew. _


End file.
